A/N: This… is a really quite a long chapter! There was no natural break—unless I made a short one and cut out the juiciness again, but I wasn't willing to do that. So… it's long. But I have a hunch you'll enjoy it. :)
-o- Chapter 14 -o-
:The Point of No Return:
While Christine was studying for the exam she had in music theory the following day, she sat nestled in the curve of her comfortable new sofa, propping her book up on the edge and feeling around her for her misplaced water bottle as she attempted not to take her gaze away from her carefully written notes.
"Why did Meredith get a balcony?" Meg complained, plopping down on the couch next to her friend, plate of cheesecake in hand as she peered over at her. "We didn't get a balcony."
"Well, I'm sure Erik built the building long before he was considering if we would want a balcony or not," Christine explained reasonably.
"Who doesn't want a balcony?" Meg answered, rolling her eyes.
"Someone who doesn't like heights?"
"If you don't like heights, live on the ground floor," Meg stated. "I feel like an idiot or a peeping tom peering out of the bathroom window."
"Well, feel free to peer out of my bedroom window if that will make you feel less creepy," Christine returned.
"You're so kind." Missing a beat, Meg said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, Conor's coming over. I'm not sure how we're supposed to proceed with this boy stuff."
Grimacing, Christine said frankly, "Well, you're not going to sleep with him or anything, right? I thought you guys weren't even talking."
"Of course I'm not going to sleep with him. He's bringing a movie and a pizza and we're just going to hang out."
"So I'm getting booted to the harem?"
"An awful fate, I know. You can totally hang out and watch the movie with us if you'd rather, I just don't want you to feel like a third wheel."
"What movie are you watching?"
"Wedding Daze? I guess it's a comedy with that guy from American Pie in it."
"Well, that sounds absolutely titillating," Christine said dryly. "I think I'm going to pass this time though."
"Suit yourself. It could be the funniest movie of all time, and you'll never know."
"I'm going to take that chance," Christine stated, smiling slightly.
For the next few minutes, Meg enjoyed her cheesecake and Christine did some studying, then Meg went to change clothes, ignoring Christine's teasing that she was changing clothes to sit in their living room and watch a movie.
"Shut up, I can't very well greet him in sweat pants."
Glancing down at her own gray sweatpants and navy blue tank top, Christine said, "Does that mean I have to change?"
"Of course not," Meg said, reentering the room in a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a snug baby blue sweater that matched her eyes to perfection. "But you don't have to make up for throwing yourself at a damn Brit because you were drunk off your ass."
"True," Christine replied lightly. "We all know I am the absolute picture of decorum when I'm drunk."
"Hey, at least you only make romantic overtures at guys you actually like. I was all over a guy I didn't even remember the next day."
"True," Christine acknowledged.
As if on cue, their buzzer made its little noise and Meg grinned, prancing over to say, "Yep, I was expecting him. You can let him up."
"The good thing about having a buzzer is that the only surprise visitors we're going to get will be the ones that live in this building," Christine remarked.
"Erik or his sister," Meg said drolly. "How convenient that only they can ambush us."
"Actually, there's a really cute businessman down the hall who is at least bilingual with a good job. Instead of wasting your time with Conor, you should be trying to run into him in the laundry room."
"Cute, huh? I don't know, you like guys like that, but I think the type A thing would wig me out. I prefer the Conors and Raouls of the world."
"Weird," Christine teased, wrinkling up her nose at her friend.
"Different folks, different strokes. It's probably good that we don't go after the same guys. I'd hate to think of how different our relationship would be if I wanted to compete with you for Erik's attentions."
"Me too," Christine agreed placidly. "I like your eyes in your head; I would hate to have to claw them out."
Making a cute little paw swipe in the air, Meg hissed.
Christine chuckled, closing her music theory book and standing up. "I guess I should make myself scarce so you and Conor can do your gross cuddle time thing."
"You could always go upstairs and demand that Erik cuddle with you so you don't feel left out."
Rolling her eyes, Christine said, "Yeah, right. Why don't I just tell the bank to give me the contents of your bank account, too? That's about as easy for me to access as 'cuddle time' with Erik."
"No, no, no, if you want money, you have to go to Erik for that, too. God, don't you know anything about fairy godmothers?"
"You'll have to forgive me if I have a difficult time picturing the very male specimen upstairs as my fairy godmother."
Shrugging, Meg said, "He's all right, I guess. The mask would throw me off."
Frowning, Christine said, "The mask is fine."
"I wasn't saying anything bad, Kitty, retract your claws. I'm merely making an observation."
"Well, only Erik-friendly observations are allowed in this building," Christine stated only half-jokingly.
"I guess since he owns the building I can't say much about that, huh?" Meg replied, smiling a little.
Just then there was a knock at the door and Meg's face lit up as she flipped her hair and smacked her lips one more time. "How do I look?"
"Very forgiveable," Christine told her with a nod, gathering up her textbook, her notebook with the pen tucked away in the spiral binding, and her bottle of water. "Well, you kids have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Before Christine even made it around the couch, however, she heard a voice that caused the blood to freeze right in her veins.
"Look who I ran into," Conor was saying as he hugged Meg, allowing his hands to linger about her hips.
"Oh, wow, what an unexpected surprise," Meg said, her gaze flitting uncertainly to Christine.
Unable to keep the look of horror off her face as she gaped at Raoul standing in her apartment, any polite attempt to pretend the surprise was pleasant would have been futile.
A slightly awkward pause fell over the room, and finally Christine gathered her wits, shoving her hair behind her ear and saying, "Hi, what a surprise…."
Laughing a little uneasily, he said, "I would have called, but I figured… you'd be pleasantly surprised…"
Of course he did.
Feeling like a bit of an ass, Christine offered a sheepish smile. "Yeah, I… I'm sorry, it's just that I have… I just wasn't expecting…"
Since she was unable to panic and feign politeness at the same time, she stopped trying, and instead leveled a telling glance at Meg. "Why don't we go get some plates in the kitchen?"
Extracting herself from Conor's grasp, Meg agreed and followed her friend into the kitchen.
As soon as they were in the kitchen, however, Christine spun around, whispering furiously, "He can't be here!"
"I didn't know he was coming!" Meg promised. "Conor said nothing about this."
"He can't be here!" Christine repeated, her eyes wide. "This is Erik's building. There are security cameras in the hallway. Who do you think sees those cameras, Meg?"
"The security team? Christine, come on. The guy's your teacher, not a stalker. He isn't going to be monitoring the comings and goings of our apartment."
"I don't know that," Christine whispered furiously. "What I do know is that he will be so far beyond pissed if he sees Raoul coming to my apartment, especially lingering for a couple of hours… my God, he freaks out if I answer a text message from Raoul on his turf, but entertaining him in the middle of the night?"
"It's 9:30," Meg stated, lifting an eyebrow at her friend's melodrama.
"Erik won't care. It may as well be midnight and I may as well be wearing a silk teddy. I've let it go too far, he's seen me kissing Raoul, I've… sort of used Raoul a time or two to try to invoke some sort of response in Erik. It's mostly my own fault, but if Erik finds out Raoul is slipping into my apartment in the evening, he's going to flip out."
"What's he going to do, yell at you? I understand the guy's done a lot for you, but at the end of the day, he's not your boyfriend. You're allowed to entertain male guests in the evenings until he makes it otherwise."
"I don't think Erik will see it that way," Christine stated.
"Well then Erik should stake a claim," Meg said bluntly. "If you're going to act like the devoted girlfriend without benefit of the title, you may never get the title. You've heard the expression 'why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?' haven't you?"
Rolling her eyes, Christine said, "Erik's not exactly milking me."
Grinning, Meg said, "That sounds so dirty."
"Back to the point? Raoul has to go."
"I'm not kicking him out," Meg said with a shrug. "If you want to walk out there and drain the very light out of his eyes, feel free, but I can't do that to the poor guy. He just thought he'd pop in and pay a pleasant little visit to the girl he's been hanging out with and frequently giving his kisses to. I don't know, some people would call that normal."
"Normal's overrated," Christine muttered, but she couldn't escape the truth of those words. "Okay, so… I realize this is my fault. I've been sending mixed signals."
"Wow, it's like… I've said this to you before…"
"Don't get cute," Christine said, leveling a dry look on her best friend.
"I can't help it if I'm just naturally cute," Meg replied sweetly. "I told you that you were going to have to deal with this eventually, I think I even told you that you were digging a deeper and deeper hole every day, but did you want to talk about it? Absolutely not. I was like, 'Hey, Christine, maybe you should make a choice,' and you fastened your hands over your ears and went, 'lalalalala!' This is the result."
"You suck," Christine stated, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.
"Don't hate me because I'm right," Meg replied, walking past her friend and grabbing some plates. "Why don't you just put your books away, come have some pizza and watch this movie with us, and deal with this situation tonight before it gets any worse. I daresay if Meredith realized how much you've involved Raoul in this little situation, you'd lose her as a champion."
A little knot of dread formed in Christine's stomach at the realization that Meg was right. Meredith had asked Christine outright if Raoul was anything to worry about, and Christine had assured her that she wasn't. It wasn't a lie, because she preferred Erik to Raoul, no contest… but it wasn't entirely true, either, as she did spend time with Raoul, occasionally let Raoul kiss her, and dangle him in front of Erik's face in an attempt to evoke some feeling in him.
Okay, so it wasn't a nice way to treat someone….
She needed to end it.
She realized that, if a little belatedly.
Sighing, her shoulders slumped a bit and she grabbed a roll of paper towels, following Meg back into the living room.
-o-
As it happened, deciding to set Raoul straight about their situation and actually mustering the courage to do it were two entirely separate things.
Still chuckling as Meg crawled across the floor to take the DVD out of the DVD player, Raoul looked over at Christine, offering a nice smile. "What did you think of it?"
"It was stupid," she replied mildly, not at all surprised.
"But it was kind of funny, wasn't it? You laughed a couple of times."
"Of course I did, but it was still stupid."
"I think it was supposed to be," he reasoned. "People don't generally propose to waitresses they don't even know in real life."
"At least not when they're sober," Conor put in.
"Right," Raoul agreed, shaking his head.
"If I asked you to marry me Meg, what would you say?" Conor joked.
"That you should probably stop drinking for the night," she quipped.
Christine snorted, then she went to pull herself up off the couch.
"Wait," Raoul said, smiling and pulling her back down, letting his arm linger around her.
"I would say the same thing, so don't ask," she said as a preemptive measure.
Chuckling, he said, "I wasn't going to move that fast, don't worry."
Still trying to disentangle herself from him, she said, "I've gotta get up."
"What's your rush? Can't I hold you for a second?"
"No," she said abruptly.
He looked a little surprised, but he dropped his arms, allowing her to stand up.
Raking a hand through her hair, Christine sighed, trying to figure how to proceed with what she needed to do.
"All right," Raoul said slowly, getting to his feet. "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be pushy…"
"No, you weren't," she said, feeling like the worst sort of jerk. "It's me, not you. I have a test in my music theory class tomorrow, and… I should be studying instead of watching a movie, and…" As she danced around the truth, she felt Meg's pointed glare in her direction. She had to be honest with him….
"No, I totally understand, that class is tough. I'm sorry, I should have been more considerate…"
Grimacing a little, she said, "No… That's not all… Um…"
As if sensing the unpleasant topic she wanted to broach, Raoul said, "Look, I'm going to head home so you can get back to studying before you go to bed. Why don't you and I meet for lunch tomorrow after your class?"
Biting down on her bottom lip, she debated whether or not she should agree. She had already set up a music lesson with Erik, but that wouldn't be until 2:30… Buying the guy lunch was probably the least she could do for letting him think she might be interested when she knew all along she wasn't, and she had only used him half the time to try to provoke another guy into being jealous…
Yep, she definitely owed him lunch.
"Well, all right, but we'll have to leave directly after my class, I have to work and I have an appointment before work, so we have to finish lunch by two or a few minutes after."
"Will we be able to?" he asked, frowning.
"We should. Since I have an exam, class will let out early. We'll have to be quick, maybe just a sandwich or something?"
"All right. Tell you what, why don't we meet at that place we went last week, the one right by the campus? That way we'll have enough time to eat."
"Yeah, definitely, we can do that."
"Okay, great." Glancing over at Conor, who was not ready to leave, Raoul made his excuses without a hint of awkwardness, then he gave Christine a hug—but didn't even attempt to kiss her—and then he slipped out the door.
Christine glanced up to find Conor and Meg just sort of staring at her, so she pointed to her room and said, "I'm just gonna… g'night!"
Groaning once she had shut herself inside her little harem, she rolled her eyes at herself and muttered, "Well, that could have gone much better."
-o-
Christine really hadn't spent much of the next morning worrying over whether or not Erik might have seen the tapes, partially because she figured Meg was right about her being overly concerned—the world didn't revolve around her, after all, and it was unlikely Erik had nothing better to do that stalk her via security cameras—and partially because she forgot. She was so preoccupied with her other classes and avoiding thinking about what she was going to say to Raoul that afternoon, she barely spared Erik a single thought.
Until she walked into his classroom, and found herself wishing that she had an extra coat.
Eyeing him uncertainly as he sat behind his table, his eyes glued to the papers in front of him, Christine glanced around the otherwise empty room before dropping her bag onto the table and turning to look at him again before taking her seat.
"Hi," she said cautiously.
Without looking at her, he inclined his head and said, "Good afternoon, Miss Daaé."
Her heart plummeted to the floor and she felt her face fall. "I'm Miss Daaé again?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"You've always been Miss Daaé, at least as far as I know," he replied coolly.
"What's wrong? Did I do something to make you angry?"
"Of course not," he replied tonelessly. "I hope you studied for the test; I spent some extra time on it last night, and I must say, even for me it's brutal."
"Of course I studied," she said, still feeling confused by his coolness toward her. "Are we… are we still having a music lesson before I go to work?"
"Yes," he replied, sounding less than enthusiastic about the prospect. "I'm afraid it's going to have to be moved up, however, as I have some business to attend to. You'll have to come with me directly after class if you want the lesson."
"I can do that," she said quickly, hating that he wouldn't even look at her. "What did I do, Erik? Why are you…?" Without even finishing her question, the night before came back to her, her concern over the security cameras. Perhaps she was right and Meg was wrong…
He finally moved his eyes away from the papers to look at her, but when those cold golden orbs hit her face, she almost wished he would have kept avoiding her.
Feeling as if she had been socked in the stomach, she began explaining herself almost pathologically. "Erik, I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not sure why you're so angry at me, but if you would just tell me then I'm sure I could explain—"
"I am not angry with you, Miss Daaé," he said distinctly.
Before she could utter another word of protest, Carlotta came strolling into the room, all multi-colored hair and indifference.
Pouting a little, Christine plopped down into her own seat and crossed her arms over her chest, hating that Erik was obviously so displeased with her. Everything had been perfectly fine between them at rehearsal the evening before, and she could think of no possible explanation for the wretched man's moodiness aside from Raoul's visit.
Unfortunately, as prepared as she had been for the test, Erik's sore mood threw her off. When she tried to focus, her brain kept taking her off track, her eyes kept flitting up to try to meet his gaze, so instead of the quick, poised responses she had anticipated, she was lagging behind, and one by one she watched every other student in the classroom complete their tests and turn them in, leaving only her, furiously finishing the last section as her cheeks burned and Erik sat behind the desk, seemingly unconcerned.
"Sorry," she murmured when she finally finished, standing up to turn in her quiz.
Shrugging, Erik replied, "If you had something more important to do than study, by all means, you have to have your priorities."
Flushing an even deeper shade of red, she said, "I was studying—you can ask Meg, I started studying as soon as I got home from chorus practice last night. I even turned down stopping for a slice of pizza with you so I could get in extra study time!"
His lips curved upward, but he didn't look amused, "Yes, I'm sure that's why you didn't have pizza with me."
"Why else wouldn't I have pizza with you?" she asked, frustrated, shoving her pen inside her bag and hoisting it on her shoulder.
"Perhaps you had a better offer," he stated.
"Don't be absurd, you know there's no better offer to me than you. Whatever you're angry about, you're just being stubborn. You know how I feel and you refuse to reciprocate and you're not fair!" Having said her piece, she let out a huffy breath and folded her arms defensively across her chest as they walked out of the room, Erik shutting the light off and closing the door behind them.
"There's no need to get all huffy," he said, sounding slightly mollified.
Eyes widening, she said, "I probably just flunked your test because I was too worried about why you were mad at me to even remember what the hell a minor scale entailed."
Sighing, he said, "You shouldn't let things like that disrupt your studies, Christine."
"Easy for you to say," she grumbled. "It must be nice to hold all the cards in this unrelationship."
"And at any rate, I'm sure you could have studied more," he added, apparently deciding not to take the brunt of the blame.
"Whatever. If I fail your class, I'm just going to take it again and again and again, and for the rest of your life you're going to be stuck in a classroom with me."
That time a genuine smile flirted with the corners of his mouth as he said a touch mockingly, "Oh no, anything but that."
Leveling him an overly haughty look, she said, "Just you wait."
Sighing lightly, he said, "I'm sure you didn't flunk it. I'll grade it this evening and see how you did."
"And if I failed it?"
"If you failed it… I'll give you a chance to earn back a few points with an oral exam."
Biting back the inappropriate remark that sprung up in her mind about doing oral exams for extra credit, she instead said, "I thought you didn't give second chances or extra credit."
"I don't, but I'm not completely unreasonable. If the reason you didn't do well was because of me, it's fair enough to give you a chance to prove you know the material. I won't let you retake the whole thing, but if your grade's too bad I'll give you the opportunity to bump it up a letter grade."
"And this isn't preferential treatment, I presume?"
"Of course not, I'm an unreciprocating bastard, remember?"
"I definitely didn't use that word," she pointed out.
"I was paraphrasing," he informed her.
The rest of the way back to their apartment building was similar; they didn't completely return to the friendly state they had been in the day before, but she no longer felt like she was developing frostbite in his presence. It did occur to Christine, as they were walking out of the building together, that she was supposed to be meeting Raoul for lunch. She felt like she should call him and explain that she wasn't standing him up, she just… well, okay, she was, but she was sorry, and she would get around to having the uncomfortable conversation with him later. Since she was speculating that Erik's sour mood might have something to do with Raoul, however, she didn't think it would be a very wise move to say, "Hey, you mind if I call another guy real quick? I'll just be a sec."
So, even though she felt even worse for completely standing him up, Christine didn't call him, she merely added it to her list of reasons to feel guilty and told herself she would call him as soon as her session with Erik was over to apologize for being such a heel.
Considering she was being quite rude to Raoul for Erik, she spent the quiet parts of the walk home building her irritation on that point. The man really had no right to be so angry. If he had been somehow alerted to Raoul's visit the evening before, Meg was right—why should he be so angry? It wasn't as if Christine was Erik's girlfriend. If they were together, she could understand his reluctance to be happy about Christine having a male friend over in the evening, but she was a free agent, dammit. Erik told her he didn't care what she did with her private life, it was her time spent with him that he didn't appreciate being interrupted by Raoul.
By the time they arrived at Erik's apartment, she had almost completely forgiven herself for the evening before. She still needed to talk to Raoul, because she wasn't being fair to him, but once she set him straight about there being no chance of them dating, she would proceed to hang out with him in an innocent and friendly manner whenever she felt like it.
Well, if he ever wanted to talk to her again after having been treated so poorly by her.
When they got into the apartment Erik helped Christine remove her coat, then he offered her something to drink and came back with a bottle of water for each of them. Heading to the music room, Erik gave her a couple of song choices to practice that day and she picked the one she thought she could perform best.
Erik took her through the warm-ups and then Christine began practicing the song. After they went over it a couple of times, Christine needed a little break to grab a drink, but while she rehydrated herself Erik continued to play softly in the background, not the song they were playing but something by Mozart that he seemed to know off the top of his head.
Christine closed her eyes, letting Erik's music sweep her up in its entrancing spell, and she might have stayed that way for quite awhile if a different tune wouldn't have interrupted.
Frowning, it took Christine a second to realize "Somewhere over the Rainbow" was coming from the vicinity of her phone.
"Oh," she said, a bit startled as she headed over to table where she had put her phone down.
"Just leave it," Erik said a little irritably.
Feeling a bit guilty, Christine hesitated, but finished making her way to the phone and looked at the screen, seeing Raoul's number. When she grabbed the phone anyway, Erik's hands slammed down on the keyboard and he was up and out of his seat, crossing the room and approaching her, eyes flashing and hand outstretched.
Wide-eyed, Christine surrendered her phone without even giving it a second thought.
His long, elegant fingers curled around the phone and for a few seconds he merely met her gaze, then he opened the phone to see who was calling. His lips curved upward when he saw Scarecrow flashing across the screen, and he said, "Your friend, I presume? Haven't we already discussed this? Didn't I already tell you I would not have him—"
"I wasn't going to answer it," she interrupted, attempting to explain. "I was just silencing it."
"Do you like him?" Erik asked, his lovely voice caressing 'like' as if it were his favorite curse.
"I—Raoul's my friend," she said, hating that her voice wavered a little. Damn, but the man could give the most intimidating of looks.
"That's not what I meant and you know it."
"I don't see why you care," she returned a little more strongly, meeting his gaze with a defiant little spark in her eye. "In fact, you distinctly told me that you didn't when I tried to kiss you, if you'll recall. Since you don't like me, you don't have any right to expect me not to be with someone who does."
Instead of making him look at all abashed, her logical argument seemed only to inflame his anger more. Those golden eyes of his flashed again and his grip on the phone tightened as he all but growled, "You're with him?"
Flushing slightly and backing up a step—as he had unconsciously stepped forward when he was growling at her—Christine's back met with the wall. "Well, no, I didn't mean that… I'm with him, I'm only saying if I… if I wanted to be with him, you can't stop me."
Erik's eyes narrowed. "I can't stop you?" he annunciated very distinctly.
Refusing to be cowed, she folded her arms across her chest defensively and said, "That's right."
"I disagree, my dear," he returned, his voice seeming suspiciously amiable. "If you had to choose, would you really choose him over me?"
"That's not fair," she said quietly, feeling a little prick in the vicinity of her heart. "You want to cage me up and keep me to yourself, but for what? You don't want to be with me, but you don't want anyone else to be either? Does that seem fair to you, Erik?"
"We've already established that I'm not fair," he said, but his voice was too low—it made her a little nervous. "Whether it's fair or not, this is how it is—the boy is no longer allowed to come barging into your apartment late at night. He's no longer allowed to call you when you're with me, as it makes me want to break every tooth in his head. He's no longer allowed to kiss you—"
"And just what authority do you think you have to make all of these demands?" she asked, even though she had been ready to concede at least half of that to get him out of his temper anyway. It was one thing when she was offering to appease him, but quite another when he was barking orders at her as if he had a right to do so.
"Are you so attached to him, then?"
"No, I'm not, I just want to know what right you think you have to boss me around. When it comes to music and class, I understand, but when it comes down to who I'm kissing, you've made sure that's none of your business. For that matter, how do you know he was at my apartment last night?"
"He had to be buzzed up, didn't he? For that matter, I told you there were cameras in the hallway."
"For security purposes, not to spy on me," she stated.
Since he didn't really have a response to that, he didn't bother arguing. Instead, he merely stated, "I don't want you to be involved with that boy."
Eyes flashing, she returned scathingly, "Then who am I allowed to be involved with, master?"
One second he was glaring at her just as she was glaring at him, and a split second later he was closing the distance between them, pinning her right to the wall as his mouth descended almost angrily onto hers, just in time to catch Christine's gasp of surprise against his lips.
Floored, Christine stood there like a statue for approximately two seconds—then she wrapped her arms around his neck, molding her body as closely to his as she could. Sparks seemed to ignite in her chest and fireworks went off somewhere in the vicinity of her head. When she opened her mouth to allow him better access, she thought she might die from the pure bliss of having Erik kiss her. He was perfect—not too aggressive, not too passive, not too sloppy, not too dry. The only problem seemed to be that his kiss was almost literally incapacitating—her knees kept faltering and she was fairly certain she would have crumpled to the floor if not for the support of holding onto Erik, the feel of his hands wandering down to wrap around her, one hand at the small of her back as he pulled her against him.
It was pure Heaven, but unlike Heaven, it ended.
When Erik pulled back, he looked as surprised and ruffled as Christine did.
"Well, that was… inappropriate," he said uncomfortably.
Raising her eyebrows, still a little breathless, Christine said, "Can you major in inappropriate? 'Cause if that's what it is, I'm a fan."
Instead of smiling at her little joke, the lines etched in his face deepened and he started to pull back—in every sense of the word.
"Oh, no you don't," Christine stated, her tender embrace turning to something more akin to a death grip. Instead of using words just then, she leaned in, lightly kissing him on the mouth, then moving slightly to kiss the corner of his mouth; after that she left a little trail of light kisses across his jaw line and down his neck, where she felt his pulse quicken beneath her lips.
"Christine…"
"Sh," she said, resting her index finger against his lips. "Unless you're going to say, 'That was a good idea, why didn't I try that sooner?' I don't want to hear it."
"The boy…"
"What boy?" she asked, flashing him a flirty glance beneath her eyelashes.
"I'm serious about this."
"Yes, I see that," she answered, grinning a little. "Fortunately, you finally employed the one surefire method of getting your way. I'll call Raoul later and tell him I can't see him anymore."
"And evening visits…?"
"Would probably be inappropriate," she finished. "However, I would prefer that you trust me on this as opposed to watching my hallway every night."
"I'm not sure that we should be doing this. I shouldn't have done that…"
"You should have done that," she disagreed. "You should have definitely done that. There's no turning back now, mister. You just passed the point of no return."
"I don't know about that," he said, smiling slightly.
"I do," she said, nodding vigorously. "Now I know you want to kiss me, now I'm not going to accept your dumb excuses."
"My career is a dumb excuse?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Um, yeah," she said as if it were obvious. "You own a skyscraper and an architectural firm; I'm pretty confident you wouldn't be living in a box on the street without your teacher's salary. Also, I will be discreet, you will be discreet, and no one at Columbia need ever know about our relationship, at least not until after I graduate." Her own eyes widened as she realized she had more or less just said she expected them to still be together when she graduated after only one kiss. "What I meant was, if they ever have to find out, but chances are they don't even need to know ever. Not that I don't think…" Pausing again, she said, "Let me start over. Regardless of where this relationship goes, it's no one's business but yours and mine. You're not going to lose your job over this."
"I'm glad you're so confident," he remarked, smiling slightly and almost absently brushing her hair behind her ear.
Smiling at the tenderness of his touch, she leaned in to rest her head in the curve of his neck, turning her face to leave a gentle little kiss there. "Rose-tinted glasses, right here."
"I'm going to have to procure a pair of those," he replied, lightly rubbing her back.
"Agreed," she stated, pulling back to smile up at him. "I have plenty, I'll loan you some of mine."
"And if all else fails, at least I won't end up in a box," he remarked wryly.
"Definitely not. I also don't think you would actually get fired for a relationship with me—I'm not a high school student, I'm legally an adult and fully capable of deciding these things for myself."
"You are, but it isn't about your age, it's about me being in a position of authority over you. It isn't ethical."
"Bah, who needs ethics?" she asked dismissively.
"Some people would argue that a professor should have just a few."
"You can have ethics with your other students. Actually, even I require that you have ethics with your other students," she stated mostly playfully, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not sharing you, that's for sure."
"Well, at least we can agree on that. I don't want you going to that damn club with him anymore either," Erik grumbled.
"Like I said, not an issue. Besides, I'm hoping you'll keep me too occupied to even have time for such nonsense," she said, grinning.
"May I assume you won't argue when I try to pay for you now?"
Rolling her eyes, she said, "Like I ever do anymore—what's the point in arguing with a man who won't stop until he wins? If you were dumb, I could just outwit you, but sadly you're smarter than I am. You should have been a lawyer."
"I would have made a lousy lawyer," Erik stated. "Can you think of anything more boring than trying to figure out how to get guilty people to be perceived as innocent?"
"You could have defended innocents. It would have gone right along with the super hero thing."
Shaking his head, he said, "Not really my style, sorry to disappoint you."
Shrugging, she said, "That's all right. I would have liked you even if you were a super villain, instead."
"Hidden away in my lair while I cackled and plotted diabolical ways to get the boy out of my way?"
Nodding, she said, "If you were a really devoted villain, you might have even kidnapped me a time or two. After all, if I'm the heroine that probably means I'm rather flighty and vapid, so I'm sure I think I like the hero, but secretly… I would totally live for the times you kidnapped me."
Chuckling a little, he said, "You would like the creepy one."
"No, I just liked whichever one you were. If you were the dashing hero, I would dramatically throw my hand to my forehead, faint into your arms, and ride off into the sunset."
"I don't know that I'm the ride-off-into-the-sunset type…"
"Thank God," she returned. "Those are so boring. Plus, I'm not really the fainting type."
"So… what now?" he asked.
For a moment, Christine considered how unusual it was that Erik—the older and presumably more experience one—was looking to her rather uncertainly as if he wasn't sure how they were supposed to proceed.
"Well… if we were different people, I would say we go out casually, get to know each other… but since you and I have a different relationship and we already know each other… I sort of feel that we should skip that step. Even though you've refused to admit it, we've practically been dating, we just haven't been kissing or doing any of that fun stuff that goes along with it."
"No, because you've been kissing someone else," he muttered.
Giving him a no-nonsense look, she said, "That is in large part your fault, and I'm not taking all the flak for it. You should have just kissed me back that first time I tried to kiss you and saved us a whole lot of time and trouble."
"I'm still not—"
Refusing to listen to him try to argue with her again, Christine went about shutting him up in the nicest way she knew how: by planting her lips firmly on his.
When she pulled back, he smiled a little and said, "Are you going to kiss me to shut me up every time you don't like what I'm saying?"
"Possibly."
"Reinforcing bad behavior isn't really a very logical way of doing things," he pointed out.
"True. It could just be that I like kissing you, and I haven't been able to up until now. I must say, if I would have realized earlier that all I had to do to get you to take that step was really make you mad, I would have ticked you off early and often in our relationship."
Raising an eyebrow, Erik lightly teased, "We're in a relationship now?"
"Your sister already thought we were in a clandestine relationship. I must admit, she made it sound a lot more exciting than it was."
Rolling his eyes, he said, "I love my sister, but she is at times irrational."
"Well, she must not be that irrational, considering our 'to date or not to date' debate."
"Say that five times fast," he challenged.
"I dislike that challenge," she informed him, pulling herself closer and smiling as she leaned in for another kiss.
When she pulled back, he added, "Spanish is fun."
Laughing a little, she leaned in for another kiss.
After that, he proceeded to tell her she got an F on her exam, she butchered her song in practice, and he was just about to tell her he hated The Wizard of Oz when she stopped giving him a chance to talk.
As much as she usually loved to hear him talk, she had just discovered she liked something else he could do with his mouth much better.
-o-
A/N: I was gonna go a little longer, but I have about a truck load of homework and a ridiculously late night tomorrow. I wanted to get this out now (Daae-Phantom-Love, I hope you're having fun in London!) so here it is! :) Hope you guys enjoyed! Thanks so much for the feedback!